Friday, July 24, 2015

Review : Tigers on the Run by Sean Kennedy

Synopsis

Sequel to TigerlandYoung Australian Micah Johnson is the first AFL player to be out at the beginning of his career. Retired professional football player Declan Tyler mentors Micah, but he finds it difficult, as Micah is prone to making poor life choices that land him in trouble. Nothing Dec can’t handle. He’s been there, done that, more times than he’d like to admit. Being Simon Murray’s partner all these years has Dec quite experienced in long-suffering and mishaps.

As usual, Simon thinks everything is going along just fine until his assistant, Coby, tells him a secret involving an old nemesis. Simon and Dec’s problems mash together, and to solve them, they must undertake a thousand-kilometer round trip in which issues will have to be sorted out, apologies are finally given, and a runaway kid is retrieved and returned to his worried parents.

Mark’s Review

YEAH!! I was so delighted to see that a third Tigers book was being released as I loved the previous two books and couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one. I just love Simon and Dec and their antics. This book does not disappoint either.

This time they are all settled down into what can only be called domestic bliss after the last two books and everything seems to be trotting along normally. That is until one stroppy teenager appears on the scene who is in Dec’s charity GetOut. A group for supporting gay and lesbian school kids with sporting talent. However, Micah has more chips on his shoulder than a carpentry shop, combine this with teenage hormones and attitude, Dec and Simon have more on their hands than they bargained for.

I just loved this whole idea about coping with these kids. Although Dec is the patient and balanced one mostly, it is Simon with his in your face way that actually gets through to the kid in the end. This puts a strain on their relationship, add to this the fact that Coby has become a traitor in Simon’s eyes and Jasper Brunswick, Dec’s and Simon’s nemesis from the previous book, is back on the scene then a book full of funny but also tender moments is guaranteed.

This book is light on the erotica, actually it’s hardly there at all but that is not the strength of this book for me. It is in the situations and the dialogues. There were laugh out loud moments and I loved the witty and snarky humour between the friends. Simon being the snark master of them all. The Oz humour shining through all the time. It is a book that takes a look at relationships and friends, how we love them, how they irritate us at times, how we support each other. A book that gave me smiles and laughs from beginning to end.

There are of course the more serious moments but I loved the impromptu road trip with an unlikely bunch of characters thrown together all with one common goal and that is to find Micha who has had a major strop and ran away from home. Priscilla isn’t a patch on this road trip – lol! Oh my, Fran is my hero, I just loved her! But this road trip also was symbolic again of people being thrown together but with one common goal they come out the other end with a deeper understanding of each other.

The other thing which I also find really impossible to believe *shakes head* is that Australia, the land of the “fair go,” has still not managed to introduce marriage equality or even civil partnership in a society that is probably one of the most egalitarian on the globe. Dec and Simon however make the most of the situation, dreaming of a future when this will be possible. I thought it was a lovely and fitting end and a subtle look, without being overly critical of the current political situation there.

If you like an entertaining and funny read with that will keep you smiling for days, happy moments and hilarious antics, then I can’t recommend this book highly enough. A great continuation of Dec and Simon’s story.

Meet Sean Kennedy

Sean Kennedy was born in 1975 in Melbourne, Australia, but currently lives in the second most isolated city in the world (although there still seems to be conjecture over whether it is actually number one). Living in such deprived circumstances can only affect his writing, which is published by Dreamspinner Press.